Appeals without precedent

Yesterday was a busy day for the Court of Appeal. Ashley and Weinberg JJA handed down 4 separate sentence appeal decisions, all of which contained the following peculiar catchword

Appeal decision without precedent value

The decisions were all highly fact-based, though Dow v R [2010] VSCA 274 and Sharkey v R [2010] VSCA 273 both adverted to the issue of how declarations of guilty plea discount can be used as a ground of appeal.

None of the four decisions explain the above catchword, or how, as a matter of law, it could operate. The decisions on the appropriate sentence will surely influence current sentencing practices, and stand as an indication of what the court of appeal considers to be the appropriate sentence. And, as courts have said before, the individual sentences in a particular case do not create a precedent of what the sentence should be in a future case, unless the circumstances are identical (which, as a practical matter, will never happen).

The catchword may, if it catches on (pardon the pun), be useful for busy practitioners deciding which cases provide valuable contributions to questions of law and which involve the straightforward application of established legal principles to particular facts. Both types of cases can have an impact beyond the particular case, and in that sense, will have precedent value, but the former category will naturally be more important for the legal profession.